This German triathlete is ready to face his first IRONMAN a day before his 50th birthday.

by William Elmore

You can spend months pouring over that deep-rim wheel purchase, days weighing up what shoes to run in, and hours picking the right energy gel for you.

All will hopefully lead to a faster and more comfortable IRONMAN race day.

But often overlooked on the road to IRONMAN is the importance of setting short-, medium- and long-term goals for maintaining motivation and giving your training some clear direction. A man who knows all about setting goals in endurance sports is the German age-grouper and IRONMAN European Tour Series triathlete, Andreas Klose, who’s on a 10-year journey to the IRONMAN start line.

I’d be happy if I was just as fit at 60 as I am at 50. I’d see that as my biggest goal.

"The only sport I did when I was young was mountain biking, for fun," says the Wiesbaden-hailing athlete. "Then came a girlfriend, soon there were children, a house was built, and the cycling became limited to occasional outings." He says that as the children got older, more time became available, and with it the idea of crossing the Alps on a mountain bike. He and some friends trained and trained, and on Klose's 40th birthday he achieved his goal.

"Some 700km in seven days, I was so proud," he says.

With the 40th birthday milestone passed, Andreas was soon plotting an IRONMAN path that would last 10 years. "That same summer I reported to my work colleagues on my sports vacation and they suggested a mini-triathlon. The whole thing was 'only' one-tenth of an IRONMAN, so 380 meters of swimming, an 18 kilometer bike, and a 4.2 kilometer un. I had fun on the run and I was reasonably fast. A seed was planted!"

Soon Klose bought a road bike and the run routes became longer, with 10k races followed by half marathons the next year, and a full marathon after that. "I was satisfied with Olympic-distance triathlons and finishing my first IRONMAN 70.3 race was gigantic, but I also wanted to know if I could do more," he recalls. He says he always secretly had the desire to race an IRONMAN before his 50th birthday. "I watched the IRONMAN European Championship in Frankfurt for a few years and found the atmosphere so infectious that I decided to do it the day before my 50th birthday in 2017."

Klose used the short-term goal of the German IRONMAN Tour Series opener, June’s IRONMAN 70.3 Kraichgau, to prepare the ground for his full debut, clocking an impressive 5:23:27 time in the process. "Kraichgau was a great race but knowing that I have to do that distance twice in July is still a shock. I have huge respect for everyone who’s already completed an IRONMAN and I can now imagine what it means. To experience this feeling is precisely why I’m so excited ahead of Frankfurt."

And what’s Klose's long-term goal before his 60th birthday? "I’m sure that the individual disciplines of triathlon will still be challenging me. I’m already looking at the 312k Gran Fondo Espana in Mallorca and an ultra marathon of 50k. But I’d be happy if I was just as fit at 60 as I am at 50. I’d see that as my biggest goal!"